The CDC Director Makes No Sense

Oct 3, 2014

RUSH: Now, this CDC, he says we got great people running the CDC. We don’t, sadly. We’ve got people who are profoundly confused and are governed by political correctness running the CDC.

NBC Today Show, Matt Lauer. I mentioned at the top of the program that I’ve been watching Drive-By Media types interview Regime officials who they have to prop up, ’cause they’re fellow Democrats. They’re fellow travelers. But it’s really hard, and you can see some of these Drive-By Media people are getting really frustrated at what they’re hearing from people that they have to prop up but they don’t like having to prop. Get very, very frustrated.

Matt Lauer is one of those examples, while talking to the CDC director. His name is Thomas Frieden.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: On the Today Show today Matt Lauer interviewed Centers for Disease Control Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, and Matt Lauer said, “Why wasn’t the apartment where Thomas Duncan was staying immediately cordoned off and cleaned?”

FRIEDEN: The details of that you’d have to refer to the folks in Dallas, but this is, after all, the first time we’ve ever had a case of Ebola in the US, and there are issues to make sure that when things are removed, that’s done safely, that it’s not gonna be disposed of in any way that would potentially be a risk.

RUSH: Okay. So here we have another glaringly incompetent Obama government official who’s asked, why wasn’t the apartment where the guy was staying cordoned off and cleaned up? And the guy passes the buck. “Well, you gotta talk to folks in Dallas, ’cause this is the first time we’ve ever had a case of Ebola. We don’t know what we’re doing! What the hell do you expect of us?

“But nevertheless, Matt, there are issues to make sure that when things are removed…” There are “issues”? How about procedures? What is this “issues” business? “There are issues to make sure that when things are removed, that’s done safely”? Well, then why aren’t those “issues” employed? “Oh, because, well, you have to talk to folks in Dallas.” But wait. If the “issues” are in place, why didn’t the folks in Dallas do ’em?

“Oh, because this is the first case of Ebola and nobody was prepared.” But we have “issues” to make sure that when things are removed, it’s done safely, and it’s not gonna be disposed of in any way that would potentially be a risk. Except it was! Now, Matt Lauer had same reaction I did. But Matt Lauer can’t react the way I did because Frieden’s one of his fellow travelers, liberal Democrat Regime officials. (interruption)

Well, no, there… (interruption) Well, partially true. There’s a story that it was the disposal of the material. They couldn’t get a permit to drive the stuff. The truckers couldn’t get a transportation permit to move the stuff after they’d cleaned it up, had it loaded in trucks. But that’s okay, because there are “issues” to make sure that this is done safely.

The CDC guy just said so, even though this is the first time we’ve ever had an Ebola outbreak. This guy just admitted nobody knows what they’re doing, folks. Now, look, as I said, Matt is having the same reaction I had, but he can’t voice it that way because this guy is one of Lauer’s buddies. I mean, he’s a fellow traveler. So after Frieden said what he said, here’s Matt Lauer’s response.

LAUER: You said we have to check with the people in Dallas, but this was a week, and obviously as the head of the Centers for Disease Control so concerned about this spread of this virus, is it acceptable that an apartment would be in that condition — a hot zone, basically — for a week after that patient left that building?

FRIEDEN: We have, uh, had our staff working with the local authorities. We understand that bleach has been used, and, uh, this is something that we expect to get resolved today.

LAUER: Seems like it took an awful lot of time to have that taken care of.

RUSH: See, he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Well, you know, we’ve had our staff working with local authorities.” But in the previous answer he said, “Well, you’d have to refer to the folks in Dallas.” Wait a minute. Why did you say you’d have to refer to the folks in Dallas if your staff’s been working with ’em all this time? And then “We understand that bleach had been used. This is something we expect to get resolved today.”

I guarantee you, just saying it, in their world, makes it happen, folks.

Just saying, “The economy is growing,” means it’s growing. Just saying, “Jobs are being created,” means they’re being created. Just saying that the stimulus is gonna create shovel-ready jobs means it’s gonna happen. Now, the hazmat team that showed up to clean the apartment last night were stopped from doing it, because they didn’t have a permit to transport the hazardous materials on a Texas highway.

Pure and simple. Snerdley asked me that. And, by the way, I think it’s insane. Regulations kill. This business about the bleach, you know why they use bleach? The CDC guy said, “I think they used bleach. I’m pretty sure they did” That’s because the woman’s daughter brought it over. The woman’s daughter brought it over. Not the CDC. Not the Dallas authorities. It is not the government, not the experts. The woman’s daughter brought it over.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Sharon in Charlotte, North Carolina. Great to have you with us. Hello.

CALLER: Thank you for taking my call.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: So I was thinking, “What are the chances that the patients being treated at Howard University in Washington could have been on the same flight as the patient in Dallas, since the flight connected through Dulles?”

RUSH: Well, I guess it’s possible, but you see the director of the Centers for Disease Control told us that it’s not a problem, because the guy got on a plane in Liberia, and he wasn’t showing any symptoms, and if you’re not showing any symptoms, you’re not contagious. And therefore it’s impossible to get the disease from somebody not showing symptoms. And therefore, it’s not possible to stop the flights, and we have no business stopping the flights because we created Liberia because of slavery. So if somebody got the disease from the guy on the airplane, it’s just tough toenails. It’s just the way it is.

CALLER: Well, to me it would be a game-changer.

RUSH: Explain why. What do you mean, a game changer? Because it’s in Washington now, you mean?

CALLER: No, no, no, but just they said that you can’t catch the disease casually, as on an airplane. So if these two patients happened to be on the same flight or same airplane, that kind of washes that theory away.

RUSH: Well, see, that’s the thing. That is one of the things about this that really puzzles me is why not, if you’re gonna make errors here, why not err on the side of caution? After all, there isn’t a cure for this. The death rate, depending, is anywhere from 60 to 90% of people who get the disease. Why wouldn’t you err on the side of caution?

CALLER: Well, what I don’t understand is if it’s not a big deal to be on the same aircraft, how come when they brought the two workers a couple months ago from Africa, they had them in these suit and contamination-free zones and special airplanes?

RUSH: Well, again, because they were showing symptoms.

CALLER: Well I guess.

RUSH: Well, they were. They were symptomatic.

CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. No, good point.

RUSH: They were showing symptoms, and what they’ve told us is that you can’t get the disease from somebody who’s not showing symptoms, therefore if nobody has a fever, if there’s no obvious illness, somebody sitting on an airplane, theoretically they’re not contagious. But the point is, the guy got on the airplane sick. Thomas Duncan got on the airplane sick.

He’s admitted it; he knew it. So did the president of Liberia. The president of Liberia, by the way, has just declared him a refugee. She will not allow him back into Liberia now, by the way, folks. (interruption) Well, now you say, “Great,” but stop and think of the difference. She’s not gonna let him back. He’s got the disease. She does not want her own citizen back. He’s got the disease.

He left under circumstances she doesn’t approve of, she thinks that he was irresponsible getting on an airplane sick and coming to a country where there were no known cases. She thinks he engaged in an unpardonable act. So now she’s declared him a refugee, which means he can’t imagine back to Liberia. He’s not a legal United States citizen, so he’s a refugee here. But the point is, I’m just talking the difference in the way people are dealing with this.

She doesn’t want an infected citizen back. Can you imagine if we had anybody in this country saying that? That’s my whole point about this being governed by political correctness. This is breathtaking to watch all this take place and to listen to these people explain their actions and their behaviors knowing full well that they’re not motivated by stopping the disease.

They’re not motivated by protecting people, or in protecting people. They are governed by being seen as fair, to the victims, i.e., the people who have it. They have put shackles on themselves. They will not allow themselves to take steps that would in any way stigmatize, isolate, whatever, the sick. Normally… Do you know what Ellis Island was for, by the way? (interruption) Exactly right.

Do you know if you showed up at Ellis Island and you had a fever, you might not have been let in the country ’cause there was tuberculosis, there was plague, there was any number of diseases. Ellis Island was not a clearinghouse to let in certain quotas from certain countries. It was to determine whether or not we were allowing sick people in the country, and we did not let sick people in. That was the purpose.

All different today. Now the sick are victims, and we can’t humiliate them, and we can’t stigmatize them, and we can’t isolate them. In fact, in addition to that, there are people running around thinking, “They’re sick because of us, because of America and our past, and therefore we owe something to these people, even if that means other citizens get sick. That shows that we aren’t judgmental.

“That shows that we are not discriminating against them. That shows that we’re not being mean. That shows that we are compassionate.” All this sick stuff. The primary focus has been abandoned here, folks. So if you’re out there asking, “Why aren’t we doing this? Why aren’t we doing that?” I just told you. It’s up to you to believe it. It’s up to you to digest and believe it. If you don’t want to believe it, that’s your full unadulterated right.

But if you want to know why if all of this doesn’t seem sensible to you, if it seems inexplicably, and if it’s giving rise to conspiracy theories, it’s because it doesn’t maintenance because common sense is not a factor in any of this. Political factors are — in a large part politically correct factors. I guarantee you that one of the reasons why we will never shut down flights from countries which are considered host countries to the disease.

We’ll never shut ’em down, because that constitutes closing the border, and we’ve got a president who’s hell-bent on granting amnesty to anywhere between six and 12 million people before the end of the year. We’re hell-bent on not closing the Southern border here to shut down that kind of immigration. We’re not gonna shut any border. We’re not gonna take step one to keep anybody out of this country for something like Ebola.

Because that would have deleterious effects on the president’s political agenda. Now, you may not want to believe that. You might think, “Certainly, Rush, we don’t have people that shallow.” We do, folks. It’s not shallow. It is a way of thinking. They have been raised with this. They’ve been educated, they have taken all the right courses that led them to be politically correct. They’ve been in self-esteem courses, Conflict Resolution 101.

They’ve been told about America’s guilt and blame and our imperial behavior since our founding and how we’ve mistreated this group and that group, that country, this country, the resources that we’ve stolen. And now look! We are leading the world in destroying the world, we are the problems global warming. Our way of life, our way of living, capitalism, progress? That’s blamed for destroying the planet.

It’s all right there if you.

You just have to.

This is why I had this big dissertation on Monday about what the purpose of this program is. It’s always been, among many other things, to educate people, to have them be as clearly understanding of what liberalism is, as I can make it. Because it is the root of every problem that we are experiencing right now, and it just happens to be on vivid display at practically every high profile leadership position in the government.

Department of Justice, EPA, FDA, White House, Centers for Disease Control, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forestry Service, you name it. The people that have been put in leadership positions in all of these agencies think the same way, and they have a chip on their shoulders about America. For, in some cases, personal reasons and in others historical reasons, but they’ve all got a chip.

In their worldview, America has been the problem in the world, and we have yet to pay an appropriate price for that. Their rise to power gives them the opportunity. Why do you think Obama apologizes for this country every chance he gets? You know, he goes and makes some speech and has to have drag Ferguson, Missouri, into it. It’s the UN. He’s telling people what he won’t tolerate around the world, discrimination this, discrimination that.

He’s says (impression), “Now realize, I realize I may not have a lot of room to talk here because in my own country we’ve had our own episodes of discrimination and racism,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Why do you think this happens? ‘Cause he does. He thinks that. We don’t have any moral authority anymore, folks. We’re not the good guys. There is no American exceptionalism. We’re not more advanced.

“We don’t have a right to keep anybody out of our country. Who do we think we are? We go wherever we want to go. Who the hell are we? What do you mean, they can’t come here? We go to Europe. We go there. We’ve gone over there. We’ve sent the CIA down there! We killed that leader. We’ve taken over that country. Who the hell do we think we are? Somebody wants to come here, fine and dandy! Who do we think we are?”

This is the kind of thinking that we have in leadership positions right now, and it’s how you arrive at the fact… It’s right there in this sound bite that we first played. It’s all right there in 25 seconds of what this guy says.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s more from the CDC director, and again, he’s on Fox & Friends this morning, and he’s talking with Elisabeth Hasselbeck. His name is Thomas Frieden. She said, “Sir, how many more people will have to come to the United States and not fully disclose who they’ve been in contact with before these travel restrictions are put in place? How much longer will America have to wait to be fully protected at the border when it comes to this disease?”

FRIEDEN: I wish we could get to zero risk by sealing off the border, but we can’t. The only way we’re gonna be get to zero risk in this country is by controlling it in Africa. Until that happens, Americans may come back with Ebola, other people who have a right to return or visa to enter may come back. People will go to third countries and come from there. Uh, so sealing them off, first off, one way or another work. Second off, it will backfire.

HASSELBECK: This gentleman —

FRIEDEN: (angrily) Because if we can’t get help in there…!

HASSELBECK: — would not have come here, though.

FRIEDEN: If we can’t get help in there, then we’re not gonna be able to stop the outbreak, and ultimately we will end up at higher risk, not lower risk.

RUSH: Now, you see, this is the problem here for the Democrats on amnesty. If the American people think the borders are exposing them to risk from disease, the Democrats could be in trouble on this. Now, who knows what people think about this, but this guy, you notice he is adamant that sealing the border, there’s no way. It ain’t gonna happen. Sealing the bored is not an answer here. We can’t do it, and furthermore, it would backfire.

They cut him off and didn’t let him explain what he meant by that. But he says the only way to get to zero risk in this country’s by controlling it in Africa. I know it’s two different things. “Controlling it in Africa” has nothing to do with whether or not people with the disease get in or out of the United States. The point is, this guy, I guarantee you, when it comes to controlling the border and eliminating or trying to prevent as many sick people from getting in, it’s a nonstarter, folks.

It isn’t going to happen, and you hear this guy goes to great pains to tell you how it would be ineffective. It would be irrelevant. We couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t matter. It’s kind of like abstinence and pregnancy. Abstinence works every time it’s tried. It just does! But, boy, does that tick them off when you say that. Then they start telling you you’re against sex and they tell you you’re prude, and then you want everybody to live like nuns.

No, no, no. You’re talking about unwanted pregnancy. Here’s the number one thing to do. It works. Well, by the same token, keeping the sick out of the country is the best thing you can do, but we not gonna go there! “No way, Jose, because our president is gonna use these open borders to do amnesty down the road here in a couple of months. So we’re not even gonna talk about this. We’re not even gonna talk about the border being a fact here,” and that’s why.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, this… this… What is his name, Thomas Frieden? I’m getting him confused with Tom Friedman. It is Thomas Frieden. Thomas Frieden, Centers for Disease Control.

I’m telling you, if you try to keep up with this guy, you will go insane. This is liberal logic. The director of the Centers for Disease Control, Thomas Frieden, says, “We have to stop Ebola in its tracks in Africa! That’s the only way to keep it out of America. We can’t shut down our borders. We can’t shut down flights into Africa. We got to stop it in its tracks in Africa. But we can’t keep people in Africa,” he said, “they’re gonna flying all over.”

Now, if we have to stop Ebola in its tracks in Africa but we can’t keep people in Africa — I mean, they’re gonna be flying all over — is there any logic there? Does it make any sense at all? Of course it doesn’t. Why are they using quarantines in Africa if they don’t work? And why did Obama send 3,000 troops to help enforce the quarantines in Africa if they don’t work?

Why didn’t US airlines simply stop accepting passengers traveling from Ebola countries? How hard would that be? “Well, because they’ll go to other countries, Mr. Limbaugh, and they’ll get on planes to the US.” Well, not if those countries aren’t letting ’em out. Folks, we are really at great risk here because of this deranged, politically correct thinking. I just had friend of mine send me a note. He’s a little worried.

This guy happens to read Twitter a lot. That’s another thing that bothers me. I shouldn’t get into this, and I won’t. Not right now. But, anyway, this guy’s quoting Twitter to me. He says, “Rush there are a lot of people I’m reading, who you would think are smart.” I don’t know how he knows this. Maybe their his friends. “They’re on our side, and they’re asking, ‘Why wouldn’t Obama just simply not allow flights from these countries?’

“‘He has the authority. Why wouldn’t Obama simply close the border to these people?'” and the guy’s worried that they don’t understand the answer to the question. Of course the answer to the question is if Obama closes the border here (snorts), then he has just given himself a real problem with amnesty. Obama can’t close the border, folks, for Ebola. He can’t. The border has got to stay open so that he can do amnesty with little friction as possible.

Anyway, “Saudi Arabia Bans Ebola-Stricken Countries From Hajj Pilgrimage — With the arrival of approximately two million people from around the world in Saudi Arabia for the annual hajj pilgrimage … [t]he Saudi government has banned the entry of travelers from three countries currently dealing with the Ebola epidemic: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The decision to reject visa requests from these countries has affected 7,400 people…”

Even despite this: “Hospitals in Saudi Arabia are also preparing in the event of an outbreak by setting up isolation and surgery units as well as dispatching medical staff to airports.” So they’re gonna do everything they can to keep Ebola patients out but they’re gonna prepare in case some get in anyway. But they’re making no bones about it. Of course, the politically correct would this country would say, “See? See?

“Do you want to be like the Saudis, do you want to be like those mean-spirited Saudis where the terrorists come from, or do you want to be an open to everyone, come-on-in-and-enjoy-America kind of country?” I can just hear the politically correct now.